Improving Your Workout Over Time
Improving Your Workout Over Time
The human body is meant to adapt to certain conditions, which is why the human race is superior, and also why you should keep an eye out on the intensity of your workouts. Progressing your exercise regimen is extremely important to avoid plateaus because as you keep repeating the same exercises with the same weights for the same amount of time, your body will begin to change in order to make the workload easier.
If you’re tracking how much weight you’re lifting, for how many repetitions, and for how long, you’ll be able to better see the changes your body is making in order to compensate for your workouts.
Even with no weight at all, you should be counting elements such as time when exercising, speed, and any other form of progress that you can track. Increasing load and repetitions when it comes to lifting weights is the easiest way to track progress, and you should increase it by five percent once you can fully count twelve repetitions.
Cardio is often tracked by time, speed, and incline for those who are running on a treadmill so that the intensity of the cardio can gradually increase as your cardiovascular system improves.
Bodyweight exercises such as a plank, sit-ups, and pushups can easily be counted by repetitions for strength, or amount of repetitions given in a certain amount of time such as a one-minute interval.
There are other forms of progressions – such as learning how to do a proper pushup. Pushups aren’t easy for a majority of people, and doing a perfect one on your hands and feet can be quite a challenge.
Begin with doing a pushup standing next to the wall, using the wall to push off of instead of the floor. Gradually increase the angle of your feet so that you will perform a harder push at a higher angle.
Eventually, you can move onto the floor using your knees to rest on instead of your feet until you get the hang of that and you’re ready for your first real pushup. This method of assisted progressions from a regressed state to proper form can be used with squats, sit-ups, and just about any exercise.
Keep progressing through your workouts so that you don’t hit plateaus or get bored of your workout and you continue to see improvements in your strength and composition. Don’t try to level up all at once – slow progress helps prevent injuries and burnout.
